Knight13: <If he intended to take this Pawn he might have waited till White had developed his Bishop to d3, then gaining a move; though White would most likely have exchanged himself next move.> Then ...Nxd5 and Black has a more favorable position.

12...Bxd5 is better. ...exd5 just blocks the Black bishop, so it is better to trade it off.

sisyphus: In Logical Chess, Move by Move, Irving Chernev singles out 5.b6 as an inferior plan:

<At first glance, this seems to be a simple and natural way to develop the Queen's Bishop, as it is hemmed in on the other side by the King Pawn. It took manyyears and a great many losses by the Black pieces, to discover that fianchettoing the Bishop was not an easy solution to the problem of the Bishop's development.

After a great deal of trial and error, one method was hit on which consisted of playing ...QPxP at an early stage, followed after suitable preparation by an attack on White's Queen Pawn by ...P-QB4 or ...P-K4. The first of these moves (...P-QB4) is meant to take away the control of K4 from White's Queen Pawn, and to open as well a diagonal for Black's Queen Bishop. In short, Black first puts up a fight for the center before he thinks of developing the Bishop.>

The funny thing is, in the CG database Black scores more wins with 5...b6 than anything else.

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